Blinded by the Light

Scientific theory is a contrived foothold in the chaos of living phenomena

Dear Member$,

Welcome to the latest edition of the AHH$ fake newsletter. Our indoctrinating gala trivia ball is looming and all being well, we shall rise to the challenge and set the Covid Safe venue at North Taroom Pétanque Club ablaze. The response to our call for papers was unprecedented although several of the handful of submissions were typically littered with effete discourse and insipid glossary from the SPoR gunny sack.

Most of the lame offerings included woke vernacular such as BAME, gaslighting, mansplaining, socially constructed, black or sapphic lives matter, white male privilege, structural racism, hard-wired and gender pay-gap. It does not matter what is said, just who is saying it.

Any skerrick of critical thinking from recidivist zero harm infidels with remote or even tenuous links to the seditious Dr. Rob Long and the Centre for Leadership and Learning in Risk faction failed to meet our strict objective criteria and the submissions were categorically rejected.

The AHH$ and its episcopal sect repudiates any non-sequitur shibboleths or debate with a diaphanous worldview that dissolves into emptiness like a house built with butterscotch flavoured Angel Delight instead of bricks and mortar. Our research is underpinned by the philosophy of science and the Deming architecture of oppression, which relies heavily on rational logic, cause-effect ideology and is complemented by the black box psychology of behaviourism. It is supported by quantitative evidence based facts and metrics, especially during the Covid-1984 pandemic and following the Dreamworld theme park tragedy….What gets measured gets managed.

Meanwhile, our organising committee has been working relentlessly and secured a commitment from the recently appointed federal attorney general to deliver the opening address at our national conference. Noise restrictions will require attenuating the ear-splitting cacophony and it will be delivered without moving her head, which is quite challenging given previous performances were reminiscent of a Scottie Road fishwife snorting shabu on a Bevington Bush thoroughfare. Attendees will be provided with suitable devices in accordance with the hierarchy of controls and requirements of AS/NZS 1270:2002 Acoustics – Hearing protectors.

The exclusive agreement required extensive lobbying from our unctuous media liaison officer and delusional blogger, Hannibal Lecter (FAHH$ MEAA). The telemarketing guru has no formal qualifications in occupational health and safety or fluency in PNG Tokpisin but displays many chthonic or netherworld traits. These include an innate aptitude of many redundant correspondents for hacking smartphones, emails and websites and demonising any visionaries who speak the truth to power or challenge the orthodoxy and its prevailing stem worldview. Our legal team at Carter-Ruck in the UK, which specialises in reputation management is currently investigating several complaints from prominent whistleblowers.

In a recent federal cabinet reshuffle the Subiaco besom has become First Law Officer of the Crown in the Commonwealth of Australia. The former squeeze of the unimpeachable redneck, Ross Lightfoot was the same harridan cabinet minister responsible for implementing the Federal Government JobActive program and its controversial Work for the Dole scheme, which is merely lawless slavery and incongruous with Article 23 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The program involved the death of a young teenager at the Toowoomba showgrounds back in 2016 and over five years later the federal government has still not produced a report into the tragedy. It is the same government and minister involved in the exploitation of vulnerable migrants via the Seasonal Worker Program and the Pacific Labour Mobility Scheme, which reflects our vision and values. The Fair Work Ombudsman recently confirmed there had been over 80 fatalities throughout the agricultural and horticultural sectors in the decade leading up to 2016, which included numerous quad bike incidents on rural properties.

Other victims suffered appalling injuries following the operation of dilapidated farming equipment or machinery and the horrific events often involved tractors with power take off shafts that frequently left vulnerable migrants disabled and permanently disfigured. This is aggravated by rampant intimidation with frequent accounts of sexual harassment and relentless abuse, which is underpinned by an autocratic and militaristic culture of fear.

The Seasonal Worker Programme and its supplementary Pacific Labour Mobility Scheme are demand driven structures, which are fraught with significant risk and merely boiler plate replicas of the cataclysmic home insulation program. The arrangements are underpinned by free market fundamentalism and have been usurped by corporate power with superficial protocols covering employer accreditation, supplier registration and frivolous supply chain audits. Much like Work for the Dole under the JobActive program it may also circumvent statutory requirements covering workers compensation insurance.

This is exacerbated by a sector that traditionally relies on casual labour with cash in hand payments, which is further antagonised by a chaotic visa system. It has generated escalating inequality with a foreboding subculture of disenchanted precariats that is way beyond the gaze of the lumpenproletariat or the mindless consumers in our supermarket aisles shopping on credit for what they want but don’t actually need

The Brady Bunch challenge in previous newsletters proved extraordinarily difficult and despite an exceptional response no entries were able to allocate correct names to individual images in the montage. Most of the efforts correctly identified the endangered Acland Parrot, Alan Belford Jones (AO), Diane Propaganda and Captain Bligh, who is unrelated to the Australian Banking Association chief executive officer. The answers will be revealed following the conference dinner. at the Eugene Terre Blanche memorial hall, which is merely a short stroll from the conference venue. The local 7-Eleven store is also nearby, which is open late, very expensive and a perfect place to visit and relax with your partner following dinner.

The main course includes an extensive range of Domino’s pizzas, which will be delivered using a subjugated temporary migrant engaged as an independent contractor through Uber Eats or Deliveroo on a pilfered second hand mountain bike with faulty brakes and no night lights or reflectors. Desserts will include Murray Goulburn Devondale UHT cream with an assortment of fresh fruit and berries ethically sourced from several farms throughout Queensland’s Wide Bay region and Tasmania’s Bass Coast under the Seasonal Worker Program and the Pacific Labour Mobility Scheme.

The organising committee and its tireless telemarketers have secured sponsorship for the event from several influential and divinatory donors, which include Fortnum & Mason, Twinings and Lipton. This reflects and aligns with the presentation from a keynote speaker who is described as a futurist with extensive proficiency in the use of big data and predictive analytics. It could have a devastating impact across the insurance sector and with organisations such as DWF Australia, which has the family trust as a stakeholder and received almost $5.4 million in Queensland state government fees involving workers’ compensation cases during the last financial year.

Another presentation discusses the impact of the work health and safety in the delivery and ride sharing gig economy, which is hardly earth shattering. It is merely indentured servitude or peonage and attempts to circumvent or obscure statutory duty of care requirements. Ken Loach’s latest movie entitled Sorry We Missed You offers a much better alternative. It exposes the reality and inequality of serfdom or vassalage and challenges the orthodoxy without any academic cowardice.

A recent UK Supreme Court decision ruled that Uber drivers must be treated as workers rather than self-employed. It could mean thousands of Uber drivers are entitled to a minimum wage and holiday pay entitlements. The decision could leave Uber with a hefty compensation bill and have significant consequences throughout the McJob gig economy.

Despite its fundamentally flawed conceptual structure (Figure 1), much of the contemporary research from Australia’s peak safety body is underpinned by its OHS Body of Knowledge, which somewhat speciously claims organisations are influenced by the socio-political context:

Figure 1: OHS Body of Knowledge Conceptual Structure

Following the infamous Lewis Powell corporate call to arms in the early 1970s, major corporations across the United States embarked on an extensive lobbying campaign. Many organisations transferred their media liaison teams from Manhattan to Massachusetts Ave NW in Washington DC and the thoroughfare was affectionately termed Think Tank Row. The region between Thomas Circle and Dupont Circle houses many influential corporate brigands such as the American Enterprise Institute, the Bryce Harlow Foundation and the Heritage Foundation. Other nearby outlaws include McKinsey and Company, whose fingerprints can be found at the scene at the scene of some of the most spectacular corporate and financial debacles of recent decades. The Australian federal minister for disease and the incumbent chairperson of Safe Work Australia have both held senior roles within this global buccaneer, which is affectionately referred to as The Firm.

Many corporate gangsters have embraced George Stigler’s concept of regulatory capture from the Chicago school of economics. Despite the doctrine covering separation of powers a resilient merger of state and corporate interests has emerged across every structural level of government in most western democracies and an elective dictatorship prevails.

Almost five decades later, corporations are no longer required to lobby federal, state or local governments because they are the government. Indeed, there is no longer any left or right in politics, it is now top versus bottom and the major corporations control the sociopolitical context, which reflects and aligns with Shareholder Theory or the Friedman Doctrine. This was quite evident following investigations into recent disasters such as Grenfell Tower, BP Deepwater Horizon, Upper Big Branch, Dreamworld and the Boeing 737 Max tragedies involving Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines.

The subsequent inquiry is typically headed by a politically appointed chairperson and includes extremely narrow terms of reference, which avoids lifting any festering scabs and prevents encroachment into politically sensitive minefields. The investigation eventually establishes where all the bodies are buried and evaluates the magnitude of the risk. The sanitised report and plethora of recommendations protects state interests and secures the assets of major corporations, especially party donors. Losses are subsequently socialised until the next disaster arises and the process is repeated ad infinitum to ensure nothing changes.

Meanwhile, forthcoming national health and safety conference from our peak safety body is entitled A New Perspective: Rising to the Challenge:

If previous safety conferences act as guide, it is most likely none of the presentations will challenge the orthodoxy. Academic cowardice will prevail amidst a relentless stream of insipid and turgid formulaic sludge and……Third rate material from second class minds is hardly a necessity of life.

Meanwhile a totalitarian society has totalitarian science and let’s close with some adapted lyrics from Blinded by the Light by The Boss:

With a boulder on my shoulder feelin’ kinda older I tripped the merry go round

And amidst a very unpleasing sneezing and wheezing the calliope crashed to the ground

Go kart Mozart was checking out the TRIFR chart to see if it was safe outside

And a curly-wurly Ardent Leisure director asked me if I needed a ride

We were blinded by the light

Cut loose like a deuce another runner in the night

Watch this Space